Ms Office Tune Up

Browsing Tables with the Navigation Pane

admin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:10:21 +0000

The navigation pane shows the objects (Section 1.1) that are part of your database, and it lets you manipulate them. However, you don’t necessarily see all your database objects at all times. The navigation pane has several different viewing modes, so you can home in on exactly what interests you.

When you first create a database, the navigation pane shows only the tables in your database. That’s good enough for now after all, your database doesn’t contain anything but the tables you’ve created.

Figure 1-19. Unhappy with the space consumed by the navigation pane? Click the Open/Close but-ton in the top-right corner (top), and the navigation bar slides out of the way to give more room for the datasheet (bottom). Click the button again to expand it back into view.

To really try out the navigation pane, you need a database with more than one table. To give it a whirl, choose Create Table from the ribbon to add a new blank table. Follow all the steps in Section 1.2.3 to define the table and insert a record or two.

Tip: Not sure what table to create? Try creating a Collectors table that tracks all the friends you know who share the same bobbleheaded obsession. Now try to come up with a few useful fields for this table (while remembering that there’s no need to go crazy with the details yet), and then compare your version to the example in Figure 1-20.

Once you’ve added the new table, you see both the new table and the old in the navigation pane at the same time. If you want to open a table, then, in the navigation pane, just double-click it. If you have more than one datasheet open at once, then Access organizes them into tabs (see Figure 1-20).

Figure 1-20. Using the navigation pane, you can open as many tables at once as you want. Access gives each datasheet a separate tabbed window. To move from one window to another, you just click the corresponding tab. If you’re feeling a bit crowded, just click the X at the far right of the tab strip to close the current datasheet.

If you open enough tables, eventually all the tabs you need won’t fit. In this situation, Access adds tiny scroll buttons to the left and right of the tab strip. You can use these buttons to move through all the tabs, but it takes longer.

Opening a Database Created in an Older Version of Access 2007

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:48:24 +0000

You can use the Office button Open command to open an Access database that somebody created with a previous version of Access. (See the box “Sharing Databases with Older Versions of Access” in Section 1.2.3 for more about different Access file formats.)

Access handles old database files differently, depending on just how old they are. Here’s how it works:

If you open an Access 2002-2003 file, you don’t get any notification or warning. Access keeps the current format, and you’re free to make any changes you want.
If you open an Access 2000 file, you’re also in for smooth sailing. However, if you change the design of the database, the new parts you add may not be accessible in Access 2000.
If you open an older Access file (like one created for Access 97, 95, or 2.0), Access asks whether you want to convert the database or just open it (see Figure 1-17).

Figure 1-17. Access gives you a choice when you open a database file that was created in Access 97, 95, or 2.0. If you choose to convert the database (click Yes), Access copies the existing database into a new database file, in Access 2002-2003 format. You can then edit this copy normally. If you choose to open the database (click No), Access opens the original file without making a copy. You can still edit existing data and add new data, but you can’t change the database’s design.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC
Changing the Folder Access Uses for Databases

Access always assumes you want to store databases in the My Documents folder. And though you can choose a different location every time you save or open a database, if there’s another folder you need to visit frequently, then it makes sense to make that your standard database storage location. You can configure Access to use this folder with just a few steps:

Choose Office button Access Options. The Access Options window appears.
In the list on the left, choose Popular.
In the page on the right, look for the “Creating databases” heading. Underneath, you’ll find a “Default database folder” text box. Type in the folder you want to use (like C:\MyDatabases), or click Browse to navigate to it.

When you’re finished, click OK to save your changes.

Tip: You can always tell the current database’s format by looking at the text in brackets in the Access window’s title bar. If you open an Access 2002-2003 file, the title bar might read “Bobblehead: Database (Access 2002-2003 file format)”.

When you open an old-school Access database, you’ll notice something else has changed. When you open a table, it won’t appear in a tabbed window (like the ones shown in Figure 1-20). Instead, the table opens in an ordinary window that can float wherever it wants inside the main Access window. This seems fine at first, until you open several tables at once. Then, you’re stuck with some real clutter, as shown in Figure 1-18.

Figure 1-18. In an old-style Access database, different windows can overlap each other. It’s not long before the table you want is buried at the bottom of a stack of windows.

This somewhat unfriendly behavior is designed to be more like previous versions of Access. But don’t worryyou can get back to the slick tabs even if you don’t convert your database to the new format. All you need to do is set a single configuration option for your database:

Choose Office button Access Options. The Access Options window appears.
In the list on the left, choose Current Database.
Under the Application Options heading, look for the Document Windows Options setting, where you can choose Overlapping Windows (the Access 2003 standard) or Tabbed Windows (the wave of the future).
Click OK.
Close and open your database so the new setting takes effect.

For a retro touch, you can use the same setting to make a brand new Access database use overlapping windows instead of tabs.

Removing Titles from Names and Counting the Number of Words in a Cell

admin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:07:20 +0000

Removing Titles from Names

You can use the formula that follows to remove four common titles (Mr., Dr., Ms., and Mrs.) from a name. For example, if cell A1 contains Mr. Fred Munster, the formula would return Fred Munster.

=IF(OR(LEFT(A1,2)={"Mr","Dr","Ms"}),RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-(FIND(".",A1)+1)),A1)

Counting the Number of Words in a Cell

The following formula returns the number of words in cell A1:

=LEN(TRIM(A1))-LEN(SUBSTITUTE((A1)," ",""))+1

The formula uses the TRIM function to remove excess spaces. It then uses the SUBSTITUTE function to create a new string (in memory) that has all the space characters removed. The length of this string is subtracted from the length of the original (trimmed) string to get the number of spaces. This value is then incremented by 1 to get the number of words.

Note that this formula will return 1 if the cell is empty. The following modification solves that problem:

=IF(LEN(A1)=0,0,LEN(TRIM(A1))-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A1)," ",""))+1)

Extracting First Names, Middle Names, and Last Names in Excel 2007

admin — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:03:56 +0000

Suppose you have a list consisting of people’s names in a single column. You have to separate these names into three columns: one for the first name, one for the middle name or initial, and one for the last name. This task is more complicated than you may initially think because not every name in the column has a middle name or middle initial. However, you can still do it.

Note

The task becomes a lot more complicated if the list contains names with titles (such as Mrs. or Dr.) or names followed by additional details (such as Jr. or III). In fact, the following formulas will not handle these complex cases. However, they still give you a significant head start if you’re willing to do a bit of manual editing to handle the special cases.

The formulas that follow all assume that the name appears in cell A1.

You can easily construct a formula to return the first name:

=IFERROR(LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1),A1)

Returning the middle name or initial is much more complicated because not all names have a middle initial. This formula returns the middle name or initial (if it exists). Otherwise, it returns nothing.

=IF(LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))>1,MID(A1,FIND("
",A1)+1,FIND(" ",A1,FIND(" ",A1)+1)-(FIND(" ",A1)+1)),"")

Finally, this formula returns the last name:

=IFERROR(RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","*",LEN(A1)-
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))),"")

The formula that follows is a much shorter way to extract the middle name. This formula is useful if you use the other formulas to extract the first name and the last name. It assumes that the first name is in B1 and the last name is in D1.

=IF(LEN(B1&D1)+2>=LEN(A1),"",MID(A1,LEN(B1)+2,LEN(A1)-LEN(B1&D1)-2)

Splitting Text Strings without Using Formulas

In many cases, you can eliminate the use of formulas and use Excel’s Data Data Tools Convert Text to Table command to parse strings into their component parts. Selecting this command displays Excel’s Convert Text to Columns Wizard (see the accompanying figure), which consists of a series of dialog boxes that walk you through the steps to convert a single column of data into multiple columns. Generally, you’ll want to select the Delimited option (in Step 1) and use Space as the delimiter (in Step 2).

As you can see in Figure 5-6, the formulas work fairly well. There are a few problems, however-notably names that contain four “words.” But, as I mentioned earlier, you can clean these cases up manually.

Figure 5-6: This worksheet uses formulas to extract the first name, middle name (or initial), and last name from a list of names in column A.

Cross Ref

If you want to know how I created these complex formulas, refer to Chapter 20 for a discussion of megaformulas.

Opening More Than One Database at Once in Access 2007

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:46:02 +0000

Every time you use the Office button Open command, Access closes the current database, and then opens the one you chose. If you want to see more than one database at a time, you need to fire up more than one copy of Access at the same time. (Computer geeks refer to this action as starting more than one instance of a program.)

It’s almost embarrassingly easy. If you double-click another database file while Access is already open, then a second Access window appears in the taskbar for that database. You can also launch a second (or third, or fourth…) instance of Access from the Start menu, and then use Office button Open to load up a different database in each one.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
What’s with the .laccdb File?

I see an extra file with the extension .laccdb. What gives?

So far, you’ve familiarized yourself with the .accdb file type. But if you’re in the habit of browsing around with Windows Explorer, you may notice another file that you didn’t create, with the cryptic extension .laccdb. Along with Bobblehead.accdb, you may spot the mysterious Bobblehead.laccdb.

Access creates a .laccdb file when you open a database file and removes it when you close the database, so you’ll see it only while you (or someone else) is browsing the database.

Access uses the laccddb to track who’s currently using the database. The / stands for lock, and it’s used to make sure that if more than one person’s using the database at once, people can’t make changes to the same record at the same time (which could cause all manner of headaches).

Access 2007: The Missing Manual covers more on how Access works with multiple users. All you need to know is that it’s safe to ignore the .laccddb file. You don’t need to include it in your backups.

Extracting All but the First Word of a String in Excel 2007

admin — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:02:09 +0000

The following formula returns the contents of cell A1, except for the first word:

=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND(" ",A1,1))

If cell A1 contains 2007 Operating Budget, the formula returns Operating Budget.

This formula returns an error if the cell contains only one word. The formula below solves this problem and returns an empty string if the cell does not contain multiple words:

=IFERROR(RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND(" ",A1,1)),"")

For compatibility with earlier versions of Excel, use this formula:

=IF(ISERR(FIND(" ",A1)),"",RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND(" ",A1,1)))

Extracting the First Word and the Last Word of a String

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:59:58 +0000

Extracting the First Word of a String

To extract the first word of a string, a formula must locate the position of the first space character, and then use this information as an argument for the LEFT function. The following formula does just that:

=LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1)

This formula returns all of the text prior to the first space in cell A1. However, the formula has a slight problem: It returns an error if cell A1 consists of a single word. A simple modification solves the problem by using an IFERROR function to check for the error:

=IFERROR(LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1),A1)

The IFERROR function is new to Excel 2007. For compatibility with previous versions, use this formula:

=IF(ISERR(FIND(" ",A1)),A1,LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A1)-1))

Extracting the Last Word of a String

Extracting the last word of a string is more complicated because the FIND function only works from left to right. Therefore, the problem rests with locating the last space character. The formula that follows, however, solves this problem. It returns the last word of a string (all the text following the last space character):

=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","*",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","")))))

This formula, however, has the same problem as the first formula in the preceding section: It fails if the string does not contain at least one space character. The following modified formula uses the IFERROR function to avoid the error value.

=IFERROR(RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","*",LEN(A1)-
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))),A1)

For compatibility with previous Excel versions, use this formula:

=IF(ISERR(FIND(" ",A1)),A1,RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(A1,"
","*",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))))

Opening a Database in Access 2007

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:44:07 +0000

Once you’ve created a database, it’s easy to open it later. You can use any of these approaches:

Double-click a database file. (You can browse to it using My Computer, Windows Explorer, or just plop in on your desktop.) Remember, Access databases have the file extension .accdb or .mdb.
Launch Access, and then look for your database in the Open Recent Database section on the right of the Getting Started page. (The same list’s available through the Office menu, as shown in Figure 1-15.)
Launch Access, choose Office button Open, and then browse for your Access database file.

Figure 1-15. The Office menu’s Recent Documents list has the same list of files as the Open Recent Database section on the Getting Started page. But if you already have a database open, the Recent Documents list’s more convenient, because you don’t need to head back to the Getting Started page.

When you open a database, you’ll notice something a little bizarre. Access pops up a message bar with a scary-sounding security warning (Figure 1-16).

Figure 1-16. This security warning tells you that Access doesn’t trust your database in other words, it’s opened your file in a special safe mode that prevents your database from performing any risky operations.

The security warning’s a bit confusing, because right now your database doesn’t even attempt do anything risky. However, when you start using action queries (Chapter 7), it’s a different story. At that point, you may want to reconfigure Access so it recognizes your files and learns to be a bit more trusting.

In the meantime, you’re probably wondering what you should do about the message bar. Just click the X at the right side of the message bar to banish it. (It’ll reappear the next time you open the database.)

Determining a Column Letter for a Column Number in Excel 2007

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 06:56:55 +0000

Determining a Column Letter for a Column Number

This next formula returns a worksheet column letter (ranging from A to XFD) for the value contained in cell A1. For example, if A1 contains 29, the formula returns AC.

=LEFT(ADDRESS(1,A1,4),FIND(1,ADDRESS(1,A1,4))-1)

Note that the formula doesn’t check for a valid column number. In other words, if A1 contains a value less than 1 or greater than 16,384, the formula will return an error. The following modification uses the new IFERROR function to display text (Invalid Column) instead of an error value.

=IFERROR(LEFT(ADDRESS(1,A1,4),FIND(1,ADDRESS(1,A1,4))-1),"Invalid Column")

For compatibility with versions prior to Excel 2007, use this formula:

=IF(ISERR(LEFT(ADDRESS(1,A1,4),FIND(1,ADDRESS(1,A1,4))-1)),
"Invalid Column",LEFT(ADDRESS(1,A1,4),FIND(1,ADDRESS(1,A1,4))-1))

Extracting a Filename from a Path Specification

The following formula returns the filename from a full path specification. For example, if cell A1 contains c:\windows\desktop\myfile.xlsx, the formula returns myfile.xlsx.

=MID(A1,FIND("*",SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\","*",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",""))))+1,LEN(A1))

This formula assumes that the system path separator is a backslash (\). It essentially returns all the text following the last backslash character. If cell A1 doesn’t contain a backslash character, the formula returns an error.

Saving a Database with a Different Name or Format in Access 2007

admin — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:41:14 +0000

If you want to save your database with a different name, in a different place, or using an older Access file format, you can use the trusty Save As command. Choose Office button Save As, and then use one of the options in Figure 1-14. Note that, once Access creates the new database file, that file’s the one it keeps using. In other words, when you create a table or edit some data, Access updates the new file. (If you want to go back to the old file, you either need to open it in Access, or use Save As again.)

Figure 1-14. Make sure you click the right-pointing arrow next to the Save As menu command to see this submenu of choices. (Just clicking Save As performs the default option, which saves a copy of the currently selected database object, not your entire database.) Then, choose one of the options under the “Save the database in another format” heading.